Elsie

i. m. Elizabeth O’Kane The smell of sponge cake cooling on the rack; clear vegetable soup with pasta, not potatoes. Bottles stacked up in the shed like a wine cellar: red lemonade delivered every week by a man on a float. The radio announcing football scores like the shipping news. Needles darting in and out: a bolero jacket for the baby. A landscape drying on the sideboard. Mills &Boons along the shelf; photos everywhere. Her hands on your face, her fingers pulling across your forehead, as you sit on the sheepskin rug, your head in her lap. It’s your sister’s turn. A few minutes longer, you say. Just a few minutes longer.